Allama Iqbal,
a great poet-philosopher and an active political leader was
born in 1873, in Sialkot in the Punjab. He descended from a
family of Kashmiri Brahmins, who had embraced Islam about
three hundred years earlier.

Iqbal''s first education
was in the traditional Mukatab. Later he joined the Sialkot
Mission School, from where he passed his matriculation
examination. In 1897, he obtained Bachelor of Arts Degree
from the Government College, Lahore. Two years later, he
secured his Master''s Degree and was appointed in the
Oriental College, Lahore, as a lecturer in History,
Philosophy and English. Later he proceeded to Europe for
higher studies. Having obtained a degree at Cambridge, he
later secured his doctorate at Munich and finally he was
able to qualify as a barrister.

In 1908, on returning to
India, besides teaching and practicing Law, Iqbal continued
to write poetry. He resigned from the Government service in
1911 and took to the propagation of his individual thinking
to the Muslims through his poetry.

By
1928, his reputation as a great Muslim philosopher
was solidly established and he was invited to
deliver lectures at Hyderabad, Aligarh and Madras.
These series of lectures were later on published as
a book - The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in
Islam. In 1930, Iqbal was invited to preside over
the open session of the Muslim League

at Allahabad. In
his historic Allahabad Address Iqbal visualized an
independent and sovereign state for the Muslims of
North-Western India. In 1932, Iqbal came to England
as a Muslim delegate to the Third Roundtable
Conference.

In latter years,
when the Quaid had left India and was residing in
England, Allama Iqbal wrote to him informing his
personal views on political problems and state of
affairs of the Indian Muslims and also persuading
him to come back. These letters are dated from June
1936 to November 1937 and they now form important
historic documents concerning our struggle for
freedom.

It was on April 21, 1938, that this great Muslim
poet-philosopher and champion of the Muslim cause
passed away and lies buried next to the Badshahi
Mosque in Lahore